On the train from Trieste to Vienna, Ernst sat in his private carriage, taking in the Austrian countryside. Green wheat fields stretched along both sides of the railway; hurried farmers moved along the dirt paths between them, ox carts hauled goods, and villages occasionally came into view.
The Austrian countryside was in truth not much different from the Middle Ages. If one were not sitting inside a train, one might not even notice it. Thus, every time Ernst traveled by rail, he felt as though time and space had become disordered.
Overly rapid development brought precisely the situation Ernst had encountered. The powerful driving force of the Industrial Revolution was actively transforming European society, while the same was happening simultaneously in faraway East Africa.
With the railway workers in place, the East African railway project officially began. Indigenous railway laborers were divided into more than twenty regiments to clear and prepare the land along the route.
When they encountered mountains, they cut through mountains; when they encountered water, they built bridges. Under the direction of technicians, the railway corridor was gradually cleared.
North of the Muchinga Mountains lay one of the major obstacles the East African railway had to overcome: a swamp that the railway could not avoid.
The East African government's method of dealing with it was simple and brutal: it used large numbers of Black people to dredge the area by hand. Thousands of Black people, threatened by rifles, used every kind of container to drain the swamp dry.
"Besides the large numbers of hippos and crocodiles living in the swamp, other dangers lurk there as well, such as venomous snakes. These creatures pose a deadly threat to our workers, so this work can only be handed over to the natives."
"This swamp can only be cleared